A Human Rights Group
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The Human Race Community Project
"The Alternative To
Living In A Fear Based Military Dominated World Is A Civilization
With A Legalized Universal Declaration Of Human Rights" …. Jim DesRocher
Why Nonviolence is Human
David Dwyer, November 21, 2006
Abstract: Our ability to interact
symbolically has resulted in the uniquely human capacity to
comprehend the other as equal. This in turn has led to another
fundamentally human development, that of cooperative social
contracts and institutions. Contracts and institutions offer humans
an alternative to the animalistic use and the threat of the use of
violence and have transformed human interaction into one which is
primarily nonviolent and operates on concepts of fairness and
justice. The emergence of social institutions has also led to new
forms of structural violence with which humans have to contend. But
with the concepts of fairness and justice, which also arise from
contracts and normal institutions, humans have the ability to resist
institutionally based violence and to construct an entirely
nonviolent world in which to live.
The question of human nature
Are humans inherently violent or are they gentle? Or alternatively
are they evil or good, selfish or generous, and so on? In this
essay, I argue that the question should not be posed in either/or
terms, but rather as a dialectical opposition of two types of
selves, one an animalistic, selfish self and the other a human,
social, and nonviolent self which has evolved in humans, but not in
other species. Thus in humans we find a unique opposition or
dialectic between an animalistic self and a nonviolent human self. I
do not mean to denigrate the nature of the animalistic self, but I
do wish to extol the potential of the newly evolved and uniquely
human self.
Much of the thinking on this paper arose from my work on examining
the evolution of language in the context of its coevolution with
culture, the human body and self. In the context of this project, I
have begun to understand how humans evolved to rely on nonviolence
as the primary mechanism of human interaction.
The awareness of others
The logic of the paper draws on the evolution of the awareness of
others. This progression derives from a proposal by Dennett (1987)
termed "orders of intentionality," but which I prefer to call stages
in the awareness of others. Accordingly, I have renamed, but not
really recharacterized, Dennett's stages as: the "other-as-thing"
stage, the "other-as-being" stage, and the "other-as-equal" stage.
The other-as-thing stage
At this stage Dennett says that the individual has a mind that
possesses knowledge and can reason about causal effects.
However, at this stage, the individual has no conception that the
other has a mind, and consequently views the behavior of the other
as no different from other things in the environment.
To be sure, at this stage one can see that there are
cause-and-effect relationships with the other such as "if I say
snake then it runs up a tree." But this is no different from one's
understanding of other things in the environment like "if I throw a
rock in the water, it will make a splash. I call this the
"other-as-thing" stage because the other is viewed no differently
from other things.
There has been a good deal of research on the linguistic ability of
apes (especially chimpanzees and bonobos) and monkeys and their
linguistic abilities as well as some work on the awareness question.
Chaney and Seyfarth (1990), who have conducted their own research
and reviewed most of this research, report that almost all the
behavior of monkeys and apes can be seen to reflect the
other-as-thing stage of awareness even though they "do occasionally
act as if they recognize that other individuals have beliefs."
Nevertheless, "even the most compelling examples can usually be
explained in terms of learned behavioral contingencies without
recourse to higher-order intentionality" (253).
The other-as-being stage
At this stage one recognizes the other-as-an animate being with a
mind that is distinct from other things and the individual begins to
realize that the other can act on what he knows rather than simply
react to stimuli. This represents a huge intellectual leap for now
the individual can understand the actions of others as a consequence
of their knowledge or lack of it. This development allows one to
make a far better assessment of the other's intentions than at the
"other-as-thing" stage and increases the individual's interest in
what the other knows thus making one's interactions with the other
more predictable.
The awareness that the other has a mind creates the potential for
new ways of interacting. Two of the most important of these are
mutually beneficial arrangements and deceit. The logic of a mutual
beneficial arrangement is a reciprocal linkage of two
understandings.
He knows that if he scratches my back, I will scratch his back.
I also know this.
Mutually beneficial arrangements evolve because both parties
understand that they gain more from participating than they would by
not participating. But these arrangements can not be characterized
as true contracts because such arrangements lack a mutual agreement
been the two parties. The most we can say is that, like symbiosis,
each of the parties understand that the relationship is personally
rewarding. True cooperation will be found at the next level.
This "other-as-being" stage also leads to the awareness that, if the
other knows, or doesn't know, something, it will act in certain
ways. And if I tell, or don't tell, the other something I can
control the behavior of the other.
If I tell him that snakes are near, then he will climb a tree.
If she doesn't know that I have some food, then she will not follow
me.
These types of deception cannot be characterized as true deceit for
they lack the bad faith intentions found at the next stage of the
awareness of other.
A theory of mind also needs to recognize the differing degrees of
knowledge that one can attribute to the other. For example, I can
believe that you have the same knowledge base that I do. Or I can
understand that you possess knowledge that is either more or less
complete than my own but otherwise compatible with it. Finally, I
can recognize that your knowledge is incompatible with that of my
own. Each of these levels of understanding of the mind mark huge
conceptual differences and represent fundamentally different
potentials. The first level is indistinguishable from the
other-as-thing stage. The second level allows for the understanding
of the other's actions as a result of what the other knows as well
as a limited version of cooperation and deceit. The last level does
not appear until the next stage.
Language plays a crucial factor in the evolution of the awareness of
the other because it can greatly assist in understanding that the
other not only has knowledge, but in understanding what kind of
knowledge the other has. The term language includes a range of
systems of symbolic interaction. Following Dwyer (1986) I
distinguish between "paratactic" (two word, compound-like) sentences
and true "syntactic" sentences, that which humans use today. I
suggest that paratactic sentences, which can also be produced with
training by chimpanzees, would enable the other-as-being stage, but
it would take true syntax to enable the other-as-equal stage. The
proliferation of cultural diversity at around 35,000 years ago
suggests that true syntax did not develop until that time and may
enable the other-as-equal stage.
The other-as-equal stage
At this stage one becomes aware that the other also believes that
the one also has a mind and is analyzing one's behavior in the same
way that one is analyzing the other. This development leads to the
discovery that the other has a mind that is fully equal to one's own
and that together we are distinct from other animals. The
consequences of this development are profound, including the
development of the complex self, social contracts and institutions.
This stage leads to a reflexive dimension because it invites one to
take the perspective and to look back at one's self. Because I know
that you are analyzing my behavior on the basis of what you think I
know, I will also look at my behavior to understand what you know
about me. To get a better understanding of how you are looking at
me, I may adopt your position and try to examine myself,
reflexively, from that perspective and I may even adjust my actions
for the express purpose of influencing your interpretations of me,
even though those actions don't truly reflect what I wish to do or
feel and put on a public face. Goffman (1963) called this activity "facework"
and we find that as humans, it consumes a good deal of our time.
As a result of this process, we develop two dimensions of ourselves;
one that we intend for public consumption and one that we prefer to
keep private. Embarrassment arises when others discover
discrepancies between our public and private selves. We also see a
development in a curiosity about others and the capacity to see
things from their perspective and even compassion for them.
Social Contracts
In contrast to the incipient form of cooperation that is possible at
the "other-as-being" stage the "other-as-equal" stage enables true
cooperation through social contracts where participants develop a
mutual understanding of the obligations involved for each party and
the expectation that the benefits will outweigh the obligations.
Hobbs (1651), Locke (1690) and Rousseau (1672) referred to this
willful entry into the cooperative agreement as "the social
contract." However, for these philosophers, the agreement was seen
as between the individual and the state in which the individual
voluntarily cedes some of his rights to the state in favor of the
benefits that a state can provide. However, for the purpose of
understanding cooperative arrangements more broadly, the proposal by
Proudhon (1851) that the social contract is between individuals,
rather than between the individual and the state, is more useful.
At the heart of the social contract is the understanding that by
agreeing to work together two parties can accomplish more than
either can by acting individually. Most contracts take the form of
if you do this, I will do that. This means that duties and
responsibilities of each of the parties are different, but this does
not mean that they are unfair because each participant stands to
gain more by participating than by not participating. When
individuals enter into the social contract they understand that in
order to gain the benefits they have certain duties to perform.
Because they enter voluntarily, individuals need to understand that
the contract is fair, that the benefits that all participants
receive are proportional to their efforts.
However, the fairness of a contract needs to be negotiated along
with questions of cost and benefits. Furthermore, these negotiations
will also involve what the philosopher J. L. Austin (1962) called "perlocutions,"
speech acts of persuasion and justification (or legitimation), as
the participants negotiate the details of their cooperative
adventure. This understanding necessarily involves the weighing of
costs such as the extent of obligations involved and loss of freedom
against the benefits. And while language may enable negotiation to
take place, it does not guarantee that it will be successful, either
because the participants do not agree on the issues of fair
distribution of benefits or because of mutual misunderstanding.
Symbolic interaction (language) is the primary mechanism through
which the mutual understanding of obligations and benefits of
contracts are developed. Language not only enables this
intersubjective or shared understanding, but also facilitates
negotiation of the details of the contract. Negotiation is useful
because participation in a contract is voluntary; participants
participate only if they believe that it is to their benefit to do
so.
The success of the contract depends on each participant
understanding the fairness of the contract and the reliability or
trustworthiness of the participants. Those with a history of
untrustworthiness will find it difficult to enter into new
agreements. Thus we find that each participant is not only
monitoring the other in this regard, but is also aware of being
monitored by the other. This reflexive awareness imbues the
individual with a sense of responsibility to the contract, because
if one wants the benefits of this contract, then one needs to
fulfill one's obligations to the other for the success of the
contract. And reflectively seeing this, one can infer that the other
will do so too. This mutual understanding is the basis for what we
call good faith. Operating in good faith also contributes to an
individual's good face.
There are other characterizations of the concept of good faith. John
Searle (1979), when describing the expectations that people have in
conversations with each other, uses the term "the cooperative
principle." For example, we expect the other to be truthful, to be
relevant and to be accurate. Without the cooperative principle in
place, there would be no point in interacting symbolically with
others for there would be no reason to believe that what was said
was truthful, relevant or accurate. The most important point about
the cooperative principle is that this (truthfulness, relevance and
accuracy) is the normal way that humans interact because much of
their daily lives are filled with cooperative agreements and the
sharing of information. It is also important to realize that the
cooperative principle is a human universal, but it is not a
genetically based universal, as is assumed for most linguistic
universals, but rather is based on the pragmatic logic that we can
only to communicate meaningfully with our peers and enter into
cooperative agreements with them if we act in good faith which is
the basis of the cooperative principle.
To be sure, following this innovation, there were no doubt
developments that favored the selection of those individuals
carrying a genetic disposition to be cooperative and interested in
others. In addition, it should not be surprising that pets,
especially dogs, who have been cohabitating with humans for some
100,000 years or so (Vila et all 1997), have also been subject to a
similar selectional process that they have developed an interest in
the other, in this case humans.
Searle also adds the crucial point that before people can act in bad
faith, which is the foundation for deceit, there has to be a
foundation of good faith. A lie will be meaningless unless the
cooperative principle is assumed because the lie is spoken with the
intention that be taken as a good faith statement. I mentioned above
that prior to the "other-as-equal" stage, a lie is not really a lie
because no cooperative principle has yet been established and
consequently no presumption that one needs to be truthful, relevant
and accurate and without this principle, a lie has no cost.
Pristine Institutions
Pristine institutions evolve from contracts through the replacement
of individual agents with generic roles. This process involves the
coalescence of a set of analogous contracts. For example, suppose
several families living in the same area have developed similar
practices to deal with household management, such as childcare, food
gathering and shelter. Because of their proximity families are
likely to share their experiences and in the process evolve
contracts that are so similar, in terms of agents, goals and
practices, that the creation of generic roles for the analogous
agents is but a small step.
Like contracts, institutions vary in size and could be as small and
as simple as a greeting, or larger as a family, or even larger still
an educational system. Institutions are often interrelated such as
the teaching profession, the classroom, the school and the
university.
Pierre Bourdieu (1982) used the metaphor of a game to illustrate the
properties of the institution. In this metaphor, each institution
has a field of play and defines and delimits the roles of different
players with different defined roles, such as goalie and striker.
Each institution defines a goal which the players are to achieve and
the rules by which it is played. Playing the game requires
knowledge, such as of one's family tree, chemistry, or edible
fruits, and skills such as how to greet someone, run a classroom,
host a dinner party or elect a president. In particular, because
institutions are so closely connected with language, each
institution is usually associated with distinct ways of talking
known as discourse.
But it is the institution, not the contract, which lies at the heart
of the cultural system. Despite many similarities between the
institution and the contract there are crucial differences.
Most importantly, humans encounter and participate in the world
through the lens and framework of the institutions to which they
belong. They negotiate their world using what Bourdieu terms
"capital," such as knowledge, money, position, most of which is
institutionally based. The activities of these individual agents
also restore and maintain the vitality of the institution.
While contractual arrangements are fair (because they are
voluntary), they are usually asymmetrical (because they involve a
division of labor. And because pristine institutions evolved from
social contracts, they also are fair and often asymmetrical. And
with the exception of the family, where the role of the child is not
voluntary, the roles of all pristine institutions are voluntary.
When individuals participate in contracts they agree to specific
obligations and restrictions, and understand from the negotiating
process that in order to receive the benefits of the contract, they
will give up some of their freedom and submit to self control. But
participation in institutions has to be accepted as given, for
unlike a contract, no negotiation is possible. Thus, when
individuals enter into the world of institutions, they enter a world
of imposed control, for institutions not only provide ways of doing
things which would be difficult to accomplish otherwise, they also
proscribe the way in which it should be (or not be) done.
With our transformation of encountering the world not directly but
through the filter of the institutions we have developed, we
discover that we have added a new dimension to our reflective self.
In the process of developing a face, we have learned to look at
ourselves as others do. With the development of institutions we now
evaluate our actions from the perspective of our institutional
expectations. This second dimension of the self, which Mead (1934),
drawing on the work of William James, calls the "I" and the "me."
For Mead, the "me" is the social self which examines and controls
the behavior of the self by adjusting one's behavior to meet the
expectations of the other. For example, if I share my food with you
(even though I am hungry), you will think I am a well mannered
person.
And determining whether this outcome is desirable, or not, will
guide the actions of what Mead calls the "I" part of the self. This
is the part of the self that acts and takes care of the needs and
desires of the self. Without the self-preservation dimension of the
"I," the self-interest of the self would be lost. It is also in the
"I" that the natural, animalistic self is lodged including such
things as emotions like hunger, thirst, anger, affection, desire are
lodged.
We need to be careful not to see the "I" as purely animalistic for
in the process of humanizing, that we have been describing, these
emotions may have modified and entered our habitus and perhaps
subsequently changed our nature through natural selection. Needless
to say, there is variation between the balance of the "I" and "me"
in individuals. And it seems reasonable to assume that some of this
variation is genetically based and that natural selection may have
favored individuals with the capacity to develop a curiosity about
the other.
Legitimation
As mentioned above, pristine institutions arise from the
formalization of social contracts and as such begin on an
egalitarian basis and involve roles that are perceived as fair even
if they are asymmetrical and do not bestow the same privileges to
each role. However, with the establishment of the institution comes
the loss of the history and authorship of the contract from which it
evolved and consequently the institution has no rational or
justification for being and appears as an imposition to which the
individual must submit. This means that participants, if they are to
participate voluntarily, need an explanation as to why this
institution and its procedures are to be preferred to alternative
ways of accomplishing the same thing.
Legitimation is the name given to explanations that justify specific
institutions using a variety of strategies, beginning with
explaining the practical value of the institution. Pristine
institutions, because they derive from contracts, are justified on
their fairness and effectiveness. In fact, all institutions use this
type of legitimation. Other legitimations, known as secondary
legitimations, show how each given institution fits into the
constellation of institutions that makes up the individual's
community (it is what we do). Legitimations can also defend the
practices of an institution against those of competing institutions
by extolling its virtues or denigrating competing institutions.
Other legitimations resort to higher authorities such as the divine
or science to justify the legitimacy of an institution, e.g., "we
are God's people" and "violence is genetic."
An individual's first legitimations come from the period of primary
socialization during which the child learns to interact nonviolently
with others and learns to operate within institutional structures.
It is also during this period that the child learns about the
authority of the significant others and their ability to legitimize
the institutions in which they operate.
The emergence of a nonviolent world
In his quasi-evolutionarily analysis, G.H. Mead spoke of other
species as "infrahuman." I prefer the term "nonhuman", because it
suggests difference rather than inferiority but agrees with Mead
that nonhuman's lack of language (symbolic interaction) and the
intersubjective capacities that language enables. In addition to
Mead's argument, I argue that this symbolic interaction developed
sense of the awareness of others as equal and led to the capacity
for two important mechanisms of nonviolent interaction, contract
making and institution building.
For nonhumans we find that much of their social interaction involves
the use of the threat of force, displays of dominance and
subordination and the maintenance of dominance hierarchies.
Importantly, the controlling factor is not the use of force, but the
threat of the use of force. To be sure, the way the use of the
threat of violence is manifested differently in different species is
a result of different natural selectional histories of individual
species.
We also find a limited kind of genetically-based cooperation which
is better characterized as symbiotic, in that while both individual
(organism) interact in mutually beneficial ways. This behavior is
not contractual, for neither has a clear understanding of why they
are behaving this way, neither has negotiated the behavior, and
neither participates voluntarily. Cheney and Seyfarth (1990) report
that there is little evidence of successful contractual behavior in
apes.
In contrast, with the development of the self, which enabled
cooperative arrangements and subsequently institutions, humans
developed a fundamentally new way of social interaction.
Superimposed on the (instinctive) violence-based mode is a new mode
of interaction which is based on the concepts of a nonviolent
cooperation, equality, fairness, and negotiation. When it first
emerged in human evolution, this mode was no doubt merely an
occasional alternative to the violent mode, but through time, it
became the exclusive mode of human interaction. Thus humans
experience the world not directly as other species do, but
indirectly through the filter of the institutional worlds which
define their existence.
This does not mean, however, that humans have developed a totally
nonviolent mode of existence for with the development of the
institutional world come new forms of violence that are
institutionally based. However, at the same time, we need to
recognize, as humans we have developed a unique mechanism that
allows us to deal with social interactions in a different way.
Violence arising from an institutional framework
Violence is a term that refers to harm and suffering done to an
individual. Prototypically we see violence as physical and direct,
one person hurting another. But for some, the concept also includes
indirect violence (situations in which someone gets hurt, but
without an easily identifiable perpetrator of the harm) and for
others nonphysical violence (where suffering, but not physical
injury, has occurred).
Within the institutional framework violence takes on a different
character. To be sure, there is still the typical animal aggression
that can occur from frustration because one perceives that the other
is not acting in good faith. But in addition we find new types of
violence arising from the existence of institutional structures. In
particular we recognize five types of violence associated with the
institution, abuse of office, institutional corruption, ideology,
institution-maintaining violence, and otherizing.
Abuse of office
In some institutions, we find that one role has dominance and power
over the other. This is true, even of institutions that are fair,
such a teacher-student relationship in which the teacher has the
power to assign tasks for the student and evaluate the student's
performance. This exercise of power is understood as legitimate as
long as the teacher restricts him/herself to requests that fall
within the domain prescribed by the role of teacher. However, if the
incumbent asks the student to do something outside that domain, like
mowing the lawn or making coffee, then the privilege of power
accorded the teacher has been abused. Because this abuse results in
pain or suffering, it is a form of violence.
Institutional Violence
Institutional violence, also called "structural violence" (Paul
Farmer 2005 and elsewhere) refers to the inequalities that are
imposed by institutional structures. While some inequalities may be
trivial, others may prevent access to important resources to clean
water, healthy food, health care and discourse. The result of this
corruption is that one group unjustly suffers poor health, lack of
employment, and even death. In extreme forms of institutional
violence, like slavery, one role may even permit the bestowing of
physical violence on others.
The term "corrupt" is used here, not only as a value judgment, but
as an analytical category with special properties. The most obvious
aspect of corrupt institutions is their lack of equity because of a
skewing of the distribution of power, property and rights with the
result that there is a privileged role which operates at the expense
of an oppressed role as illustrated in the role pairs of
master/slave, king/vassal, and farmer/surf. Corrupt institutions
tend to be involuntary, at least for the oppressed role. Along with
this inequity come additional legitimations, termed "ideological"
not found in normal institutions that justify the institutions, not
on the basis of their fairness and utility, but on the basis that
this was meant to be, whether as the will of god or a fact of nature
as revealed by scientific inquiry. Furthermore, corrupt institutions
are a major source of violence in the human world.
Corrupt institutions can be manufactured or can arise from change in
a normal institution. Change is possible because institutions are
renewed by the process of use. When individual agents participate in
institutional roles, their very actions renew the structure of the
institutions and conversely, if no one participates in a given
institution, it will cease to exist. Now, because individual agents
are creative and innovative, they may redefine their role to more
closely meet their needs. For example, although previously,
teacher-student interactions were restricted to the classroom or
teacher's office, as a teacher, I choose to expand the field of
interaction by inviting students to my home. If this practice
catches on with some of my other colleagues, home visits may become
part of the teacher-student institution.
Institutional corruption arises, when the change involved has the
effect of privileging one of the roles. Take, for example, the
employee/worker institution. In a normal institution, the worker
exchanges his/her labor for money on a voluntary basis. There are
institutional expectations of both the employer and worker, but at
this stage, both roles stand to benefit from the arrangement. There
may come a time when the employer, knowing that jobs are scarce,
will impose additional tasks on the worker. The worker may recognize
this oppression and may choose to quit. But given that jobs are
scarce and he/she needs money to buy food, the worker may decide,
despite the oppression, to submit to the oppression. In time, this
oppression may become institutionalized. Institutional violence is
based on the privileging one role at the expense of another,
providing some access to resources such as clean water, health care,
education, a safe habitat while denying the same resources to the
others.
Submission to oppressive institutions
If humans have a sense of fairness and justice that arises from the
making of contracts and participating in normal institutions, we
need to explain why people would agree to participate in a corrupt
institution. First, since the individual is interested in
maintaining a positive face or honor, and because the refusal to
join an institution may result in a loss of honor, the individual
may feel obliged, due to this peer pressure, to enter into
institutions even though he would prefer not to. Thus, despite the
oppression of the institution, the cost of not participating is
greater than participating. Second, even though the institution has
become corrupt, it may still produce legitimations that justify it
as fair and just. (We are a democracy.) Third, although the
individual may feel that the imposed role is unjust, the individual
is persuaded by legitimations that claim that this inequity was
meant to be.
I characterize such privileging legitimations as ideological,
following the Marxist use of the term, though I differ from Marx in
thinking that the ruling class is not the only privileged group so
that legitimations justifying the privileging of men over women,
whites over blacks and the like are also ideological. The point here
is that while institutions may loose their egalitarian basis, they
may still hold together because of the strength of the ideological
legitimations. Ideology in this sense can be seen as a symptom of
corrupt, illegitimate institutions.
One may ask why these ideological legitimations are so convincing. A
partial answer is that they rely on some powerful authority such as
significant others, the supernatural or science. If god says that it
is our responsibility to rule or be ruled, we find it difficult to
challenge, lest we offend god. If science says we are inferior, or
that this was meant to be, how can we defy our genetic make up? If
social scientists tell us that the poor will always be with us or
that violence is natural, we are likely to accept this even though
we may not like it.
Institution-maintaining violence
And if the legitimation of such institutions fails, those holding
the privileged roles may resort to the use of violence to maintain
their privilege, as in the case of the police state or maintaining
the institution of slavery. And when institutions become based on
ideology rather than equality, the use of violence becomes natural
and acceptable. But this approach is costly for a number of reasons
and eventually breaks down. In addition, it is possible for the
privileged to hold so much power, that they no longer see the value
in participating in institutions of equality at all and at this
point the principle of good faith is no longer needed.
Resistance to corruption
Death makes room for the young.
Because people primarily participate in normal institutions which
are based on fairness and justice, they have a sense of what is fair
and just and can recognize institutional inequalities and injustices
when they arise. Even so they may continue to participate in these
institutions for reasons cited above, but they do so with skepticism
because they are aware that the institution is not living up to its
legitimations. This awareness can lead to alienation but it can also
lead to resistance and to change. If they point out the
discrepancies between the ideal laid out by the legitimation and
institutional practice, they may embarrass the institution into
reform. This publicity may also lead to a greater awareness of the
corruption and even greater support for reform. This awareness of
the failing legitimation may lead the empowered to violence or to
the illusion that physical violence can be justified to maintain the
institution.
Otherizing Violence
Otherizing is a byproduct of institutions. Otherizing arises when an
institution encounters another institution carrying out a similar
function. Examples include different nationalities, religions,
political systems, sexual practices, universities, academic
departments and disciplines, peace groups and the like. The
existence of a competing institution challenges the legitimacy of
one's own institution. Here are people who are getting along just
fine, but who are not doing things our way. Is our way not "the"
way? What's going on? Otherizing is a form of legitimation that
justifies an institution by demonizing its competitors. They do it
differently, but they are wrong, bad, evil, and possibly not even
human. While it is possible to be tolerant (they do it differently,
but it is just not our way), there is a tendency for us to see the
other as a real danger to our institutions, to which we are loyal
and to ourselves. Thus otherizing may lead to violence against the
other, be it physical in the form of beatings, incarceration or war
or structural in the form of denial of rights accorded other
citizens.
At the same time, there is another process, which I feel is the
stronger of the two, what I call inclusion, a process in with others
and otherized groups are reclassified as members of one's own group.
My own experience has seen the inclusion in my community of
Catholics, African Americans, women, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and
the diminution of national loyalty as a fence against others. As a
peace corps volunteer in Cameroon, I noticed that many of my fellow
volunteers initially referred to Cameroonians as "they," but later
switched to "we" when talking about community members.
The incomplete self
A final type of violence arises because of a failure of the
individual to develop a sense of the other as fully equal. In the
case of monkeys and apes, Cheney and Seyfarth (1990 253) note that
[They] do occasionally act as if they recognize that other
individuals have beliefs, but even the most compelling examples can
usually be explained in terms of learned behavioral contingencies
without recourse to higher-order intentionality. What little
evidence there is suggest that apes, in particular, may have a
theory of mind, but not one that allows them to differentiate
clearly or easily among different theories or different minds.
Is it not possible that some humans never get beyond the
other-as-being stage? As Cheney and Seyfarth point out, it is
possible to disguise a lack of an other-as-equal stage. If so, then
it may be the expectations institutions actually impose behavior
that forces some individuals to act as if they are operating in the
equal stage when they really haven't developed to this level. Surely
this happens in the case of psychopaths, but the question arises, is
it not possible that this phenomenon is even more widely spread in
our society? Are there not people who act as if they value the other
as equal, but do so only because it is expected of them? If this is
the case, these individuals may have a mind that recognizes the
other as being but not as equal. If so, then the normal process of
entering into contracts and institutions is always done from a
me-first perspective, and this may be one of the motivating forces
behind institutional corruption. This possibility may help explain
the some individuals do not have the ability to put themselves in
the place of others and why they fail to support egalitarian
institutions.
The basis of human nonviolence and violence
This evolution of the awareness of the other has opened the door to
a new understanding of human nature. Previous debates over whether
humans are inherently (instinctively) violent, evil or the like
versus whether they are inherently nonviolent, good, etc. presume
that these are the only possibilities. This investigation proposes a
third, which recognizes that humans are both. More specifically I
conclude that a nonviolent mode of interaction is superimposed on a
generalized nonhuman dependency on violence as a means of regulating
social behavior. Consequently, when dealing with others, humans,
unlike any other species on the planet, have a choice of interacting
either violently or nonviolently. Furthermore, when we view the
myriad of daily interactions of humans we find that almost all are
conducted nonviolently using the cooperative institutions and
agreements that they and their predecessors have developed over
generations.
But humans do not always live nonviolently, and in fact the
development of the institutional world in which they now live
contains new forms of violence which I have labeled: abuse of power,
institutional corruption, ideology, institution-maintaining
violence, and otherizing. These forms of violence differ from the
type of animal violence described above because they all derive from
some institutional abnormality.
This violence, however, is not inevitable; it is not as some
ideologies would have it a biological fact of human nature. Rather,
this violence is associated with the institutions that humans
constructed and furthermore is the result of self-centered human
activity. And just as corrupt institutions can develop from healthy
ones, so can corrupt institutions be reformed. This is because the
normal institution, which is based on fairness and equity, is the
predominant institutional form in all human societies and as a
consequence the principles of fairness and equity is a concept with
which all humans are endowed when they enter institutional life so
much so that the qualities of fairness and justice, and compassion
are seen as the definitive qualities of our humanity.
History is filled with examples of the overthrow and reformation of
corrupt institutions large and small and history tends to record
those associated with violent resistance, even though it often fails
to record the failures of this violent approach. Zunes, Kurtz and
Asher (1999) have addressed this lacuna by documenting the numerous
successful, nonviolent repair in all parts of the globe, from the
overthrow of colonial power in India and Zambia, Apartheid in South
Africa, dictatorships in Bolivia in 1982 and Haiti in 1985, and male
sovereignty in the United States. With the exception of violence,
nonviolent resistance requires the same qualities usually associated
with military engagements, but results in positive change more
likely to be permanent and with considerably less suffering.
Most importantly, however, this debate is not simply an academic
one. If one takes the stance that humans are by nature violent, one
can argue that violence in humans is inevitable and that as humans
we need to accept violence as a normal part of our existence. In
fact this view that humans because they live primarily non violent
lives in normal institutions are not only primarily non violent, but
because they have the institutionally derived concepts of fairness,
justice (responsibility?) they are also capable of resist
institutional corruption.
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People or sheeple........what are you going to
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